You can go back in time to any era...

Would you do it? And what decade would you go to. And hey I'm not ruling out Ancient history, I just don't know if I want to go back there for good. Life really sucked back then.

1974. New Orleans. Decatur at Iberville.

1984. Amsterdam. Red light district.

1994. Richmond Hill near Toronto. Fantasia.

2004. Drew Park in Tampa. Lipstixx.

2014. Absolutely nowhere.

2024. Here I am.

2008-2010. Young and optimistic. Had money. Surrounded by intelligent, ambitious people. Partied and screwed my brains out, no obligations. Online dating was still a Stop & Shop of women. Oh and better extras in Providence.

But after that, the last few years have been damn good too. In particular, this year has been awesome.

I'd go back to the American Revolution. I think it would be interesting to see real history in the making. I'd tell those soldiers to lose the snazzy blue uniforms and teach them how to camouflage themselves. And this standing in an open field thing, just lined up and shooting each other... yeah, that's out.

I'd have that war finished in no time, and as the guy whose clever ideas led to the speedy annihilation of the Brits, I figure I'd get laid a lot. Probably go on tour through all the colonies and hook up with a half dozen young ladies every time I stop for the night.

To be honest, right now is a pretty good time to be alive!

Here's a more fun answer: I'd go back to ancient Rome. Equipped with the very simple (but elusive) formula for making gunpowder, I would wind up being a famous and wealthy alchemist. (For the record, it's 75% saltpeter, 15% softwood charcoal, and 10% sulfur, and the proportions must be exact.)

I'd buy a nice villa in the middle of the city, just down the street from the best brothel in town, and I'd spend the rest of my days having Roman orgies.

Better bring some antibiotics with you ...

Hmm, good point @BookGuy. I would definitely want to smuggle some tetracycline with me through this time portal....

University of Massachusetts (Zoo Mass.) in it drug and alcohol fueled heyday of 1975-1979. I would join Phi Sigma Kappa and enjoy the 18-year-old drinking age, the easy, free sex, the no aids, the no herpes, the no need for condoms because all the women were on the pill. I would enjoy Tuesday night ten cent draft night at Barselotti's. I would buy a Pub mug for $3.00 and enjoy quarter beers in it every Wednesday. I would sell weed and have an income of a free ounce and $120.00 cash every week, at a time when the minimum wage was $2.50 an hour. I would love to ride my motorcycle, even after I ran over a bird in flight. I'd enjoy going to the Blue Wall, drinking forty-five cent beers, getting in for free and watching "The Cars". The next month I'd go to the "Hatch" and see Elvis Costello and the following month I would go back to the frat during Intermission of The Kinks to do shots because it was 50 yards from the fine arts center. I'd enjoy having the frat bar open at 1:00 a.m. and see all the drunk girls flood in for alcohol and dancing. I would thank God that I had drunk girls, weed, and a bedroom two flights up every weekend of my college life. Lastly I would like to go to our spring bash as a guest, just one time, and not work it. We were limited to a 6 hour liquor license by the school, permitting us to sell beers in our backyard. 365 kegs. 6 hours. That was the 70s.

unclear on the "even after i ran over a bird in flight" motorcycle comment, seems like you're referencing something specific?

I’m assuming you mean going back in time equipped with the knowledge I know today. If that’s the case then I’d do it. I’d bring a print out of all stock performance reports for the past 65 years and become a multi-millionaire.

Technology today is great but I think it’s in a stagnant point of too much right now. Smartphones have turned a lot of people (including myself) into 24/7 365 employees.

I just want to watch a certain college football game and it’s only steaming on an app, which I can only get on my phone which I can’t “cast” to my TV because the app is restricted. Things like this drive me insane. That’s technology working against you. I need a true self driving car, one I can sleep in until I get to my destination. I want a food machine that I just throw the ingredients into and out comes a full prepared gourmet meal. No, today people flip out because Apple adds new emojis to text messages, that’s the technology we get today.

I think it would be fun to go somewhere developing that eventually becomes huge, Vegas, South Florida, several California cities. A lot of places that I wouldn’t want to live today, were once really cool. Then again if I had the knowledge from the future I could pull a Buff Tanner (Back 2 The Future II) and bankrupt a few casinos through their sportsbooks. I’d take joy in that!

Great question - my college days in the early 80s were pretty great. I played rugby, which was a perfect blend of sports, violence and partying. We even had some nubile groupies, as did a lot of the teams we played. That was a great time in my life.

I honestly miss quarantine. Would go back to that era in a heartbeat without the widespread dying of course. Loved that everyone kept to themselves, money went a long way, work was remote, and we appreciated the little things. Now everyone you meet in public wants to know your lifestory and share, deals are hard to find, and way too many shitty options out there

I'd rather bring forward in time the metabolism, orthopedic resiliency, energy levels, and general health of my mid/late 20s to present day.

Around 2004-05, a Canadian porn start\ needed a green card. She offered me, pay my rent for 24 months plus $2,000 a month. She said 2 years would be enough for her to get a green card and divorce.
She moved in, she was boring as hell, went out with me and my friends once in like 3 months. I told her it wasn't going to work, she said ok, went to Cali and got hitched,

I would go back, do the marriage and take the money.

As an adult, I think we all realized how good we all had it in college. I’ve always joked if I knew then what I know now, I’d still be in college today.

BOOK - we were out riding one day near Amherst Mass. A flock of birds flew across the road - I saw one come directly at me and instead of going high the idiot went low and the rear tire got him. Just popped into my head.

Studme:

You didn’t go to Duke, did you. 😊

I guess as long as one was white, and not a minority, post WW II 1950’s seemed like an interesting time.

The post-war economy was booming. Seems like everyone could buy a home. And if you can believe movies, although prostitution was illegal it always seemed to be available. And if that wasn’t your thing, seems like there were always dances and mixers to help everyone find a partner

first. i'd divorce at 3 months.

second. and MOST important. do vegas strip clubs ONLY one month instead of four years.

That's an easy one. I'd go back to 5 years ago on Mother's Day and drive her home myself.

Motörhead - no, not Duke. Although I know their Lacrosse team liked to party!

If you ever took any of your kids for a college visit on a warm spring day when all the coeds were out, you’d realize how much you wish you could go back in time.

I like how the OP specifically said that life circumstances (and age) is still the same, and only the time period is different. And only a couple responders took that part seriously 😂

I know stagflation sucked and all, but it would be kinda cool to visit the 70s. There was a whole bunch of stuff from that era that impacted culture to this day and it would be kinda cool to see the origin. And my boomer Filipino family members were going about society just fine at that time, so I probably would be as well.

@nicespice: "I like how the OP specifically said that life circumstances (and age) is still the same, and only the time period is different. And only a couple responders took that part seriously"

I took that part seriously. I wasn't a factor.

I understand that grief sucks. I’d rather have paid better attention to a friend who wasn’t doing well, and done more to help prevent that death.

^^Nice when I read about life in the 70s I am always struck by how different my experiences were. Maybe because I grew up in a shitty neighborhood, then a shitty rural neighborhood, but my experiences were pretty fucking basic and simple. Drink beer, smoke weed, drive around in the car, get in fights with no permanent damage and look for women every minute of every fucking day. Everything was face to face. plans were made and kept. Promiscuity was mainstream. Hitchhiking was transport.

A perfect movie which shows what high school life was like (minus the paddle bullshit, I grew up in MA. not TX.) is 1993's Dazed and Confused. It depicts one night, but for us that was life 4-5 days a week school year and every day in the summer.

I may have been in the duke area in the scandal years. Scandal hit the university hard but that didnt hold me back from a spring break trip to the DR

Fast Times at Ridgemont High was something like my high school years, but in NJ, not California. All my friends had kind of shitty after school jobs that were also kind of fun and gave us the autonomy that came with making your own cash. Life revolved around chasing girls.

^ We could do anything we wanted or buy anything we wanted when we were kids; as long as we paid for it using money we had earned. After selling greeting cards door to door, after my paper route, after mowing lawns all summer and shoveling snow all winter, I worked at Exxon, Delitizer, Brighams, Franklin Simon, Woolworth's Ken's Steakhouse (you may know the salad dressing) and Kennedys before I was 18.

I think about the 90s and early 2000s, when China was weak, Russia was friendly, broadcast television was good, basic cable + HBO was great (no more streaming), technology was acceptable (not mandatory and everywhere). No social media or influences. People were proud to be Americans.

2010, Hiliter. I’d get all the bareback bj’s from those good looking dancers that have long retired. The club doesn’t offer the same product or set up like it used to. Now I just no longer attempt to get service from unattractive dancers for patrons who have an open view with no privacy.

@nicespice: "I understand that grief sucks. I’d rather have paid better attention to a friend who wasn’t doing well, and done more to help prevent that death."

I feel ya. I know there was no way to foresee what would happen to her that day, but gods don't I wish...

My situation: single, good-size nest egg, probably less than 20 years of life left, or at least worthwhile life. 1960. I'd move to Mexico. I'd be dead before the rise of the drug cartels. Or, wanting to be killed anyway when they did rise. I would miss the internet.

If the rule is I have to stay the same age I am now, I might as well stay put.

OTOH, I sometimes get to sleep at night playing out a movie script in my head where I go back to when I was 15 but I have all the knowledge and experience I do now, and I’m figuring out just how much additional fucking around I can get away with without triggering the “butterfly effect” and not getting to experience life with my two fantastic kids. Since I met my SO at age 21, that would give me a 6 year window. As others have mentioned, that was pre-AIDS and everybody was on birth control, and I could nut multiple times during an evening, even if drunk

Downside is very little $. I had a decent part time job but there was still little left after car payments, insurance and gas and, after 18, tuition and living expenses. And it wouldn’t be realistic that I’d have enough capital to parlay my foreknowledge of the market into a significant fortune, especially given the then-existing strictures on brokerage accounts

In the sequel, I wake up on the morning of September 10 2021, at my then-current age and social position, and try to stop the impending terrorist attacks, without getting locked up as a lunatic or charged as a co-conspirator (My character is played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and my long-suffering but patient wife is played by Margot Robbie)

My situation doesn't change, just the time period.
Okay, I'm going back to 1966. I'm going to San Francisco. And for the next six years I am going to see some of the greatest concert/musical acts from the formative days of rock 'n roll. I probably have more money now than I could spend in the years that I have left, but turned a big old pile into 1966 dollars and holy shit. Dodge and Plymouth salesman would name their children after me from the amount of Mopar's I would be collecting. Now the 1967 Summer of love will probably be a little frustrating. Stoned free-spirited hippie chicks probably aren't going to want to have sex with a 60-year-old in the trust no one over 30 days. 😢

If I was the same age, same financial status etc. id go to disco era NYC in the 1970s or the early 1990s with the club kids and all that. Or Hawaii in the 1300s. Must have been paradise.